7 Ways Banking CMOs Need to Change the Status Quo

Sure, consumers don’t trust bankers. Yes, the distrust resulting from the banking collapse and bailouts spawned laws thwarting previously profitable practices. That has marketers at the institutions projecting less than 5 percent growth in 2012, with those increases only coming from taking other banks’ market share. And, no surprise, that has marketers at those institutions worried that their budgets will be slashed.
“Yet no bank has ever cut expenses exclusively as the path to growth,” according to “Marketing in the New Normal: Insights from Acxiom’s Survey of Bank CMOs.”

During the first quarter of 2012, New York-based publisher SourceMedia conducted a survey on behalf of Little Rock, Ark.-based data solutions firm Acxiom that found: “Better data infrastructure, better analytics and better insight generation are the keys to changing the status quo.”

The research also states:

The chief marketing officer needs to direct the customer experience, rather than branches or IT;

Banks need to build “a 360-degree view of the customer” to deliver that customer experience;

Regional and small bank marketers have to realize that, yes, they are far behind in terms of analytics and they do need to catch up;

Concentrate on proactive rather than reactive analytics;

When hiring outside strategists, pick professionals who tell the truth rather than what the institutional hierarchy wants to hear;

Accurately attribute activity in all direct marketing channels, rather than in single channels; and